'Democracia en el pais y en la casa’ : poesia chilena femenina en tiempos de crisis política = ’Democracy in the state and the home’ : Chilean feminine poetry in times of political crisis

Abstract

This thesis examines the development and consolidation of a feminine literary movement in Chilean women's poetry of the 1980s through a study of Carmen Berenguer, Teresa Calderon, Heddy Navarro and Veronica Zondek. During those years of the military dictatorship, women started to protest in an attempt to discover the whereabouts of their husbands and children "disappeared" by the military. These protests were firstly the catalyst for the emergence of social movements, and later, the appearance of women's movements. As women living in a time of crisis brought on by the weakening of the military dictatorship, they realise that they are doubly oppressed: both as women in a patriarchal society and as citizens. The poets studied seek to reflect and change both aspects of this dominant public order through their writing. While their poetry is influenced by feminist thought of the time, it also forms an attempt to affect a broader and more profound change to society. In their pursuit of democracy in all spheres of life, these poets endeavour to create a new space for women through their language and the themes in their poetry. Until that time, there were only isolated cases of a distinctly feminine literary language in Chilean poetry. These poets, however, firmly establish themselves as a new voice within Chile's literary tradition. Due to this fact, the study of this period makes it possible to trace a genealogy within Chilean literary history. At the same time, it also opens up new avenues of approach for studying more recent Chilean I literary production in a contemporary political and historical context marked by globalisation and neo-liberalism.